Last week was a wonderfully gorgeous and delightful summer-like week, in the 70’s. Cooled down a bit over the weekend and woke up to a frosty 29°F this morning but not complaining. Took advantage and got quite a lot of outdoor chores completed, still more to do, but garden chores like house chores never ends.

One of the chores that needed attention was getting rid of the snow pea vines in the foam ice chest. Imagine my surprise when I saw snow peas and pea flowers, lots of pea flowers on the vines. Decided to give the plants a good drink and leave them alone. The weather this week will continue to be nice so those peas should plump up and who knows, those flowers may produce more peas.

Snow Peas in Foam Ice Chest

Can you see the snow peas hanging down and the many white flowers on the vines? The above experiment proves it is possible to grow snow peas successfully in container.

NOTE: The vines would have been taller if the woodchuck had not eaten part of it earlier (what you are seeing in the photo are regrowth that I did not think would produce) and I am sure there would have been many more snow peas as well.

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No harvest from the garden but harvest a bit from the containers and window boxes.

Happy Rich Broccoli, Bronze Mignonette Lettuce & Snow Peas

Lettuce in the window boxes continue to grow well. I am still only harvesting the outer leaves as needed daily.

Cabbage worms were crawling all over the Happy Rich broccoli leaves, they looked well fed from feasting on the leaves. Did not want to spray so pulled all the plants. Got a few pitiful ounces of usable stalks.

The 4 snow peas are from the above mentioned plants. Looking forward to future harvest.

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One of my container napa cabbage showed signs of bolting so harvested it. Hope the remaining 4 have time to form solid heads.

Container Napa Cabbage

Look closely in the center of the plant and you will see the flowers.

Combined the napa cabbage, Happy Rich broccoli and snow peas and made a simple stir fry, made a delicious side dish.

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The Walking Onions continue to do well and are happy it their location.

Walking Onions (aka Egyptian Onion & Tree Onion)

Have been harvesting as needed and use as scallion.

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Am surprised how well my rosemary is growing and was not affected by the frosts and deep freeze.

Rosemary

The rosemary plant is growing in a sheltered location by my back door. Not hardy in our area but am leaving it in the ground to see if it will survive the winter (in its little micro climate area) especially since we are supposed to have a mild winter courtesy of El Niño.

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The Chives, Scallion, Lemon Thyme, Regular Thyme, Sage and Oregano all survived the frosts and deep freeze also and are thriving.

Scallion, Lemon Thyme & Sage

Having the herb bed by the backdoor makes it convenient to snip as needed.

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Driving to Locust Grove Thursday morning (Thursday morning is our heritage vegetable garden volunteer day) I was thinking about overwintering root vegetables. When I got to the garden I posed the following question to LG Horticulturists Tim Steinhoff and Susan MacAvery:

“What if I replant the harvested carrots, celeriac and leeks (without cutting off the tops and roots) in a container and keep them in my garage over the winter, how well will they do? Will keeping the leaves intact affect the quality of the roots?”

Their answer was: “It’s worth an experiment.” (I make life interesting for Tim and Susan with my many “What if …..” questions.)

So I brought home 3 carrot, 2 celeriac and 2 leeks and replanted them in Pro-Mix in a foam ice chest.

Carrots, Celeriac & Leeks ready for winter

My ice-chest garden is a bit overcrowded but hopefully by staking the celeriac everyone will be happy. Shall bring you up-to-date on the results of my experiment in the spring.

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The following photo was taken 2 weeks ago when my Seedless Red Maple was at its peak color. Breathtaking! My photo does not do the color nor the tree justice.

Seedless Red Maple

All the leaves have fallen and the tree will remain bare until spring.

Those pea vines look amazingly well after being eaten by the groundhog! And I can see the flowers and the pea pods on it. I do enjoy reading about your experiments, and it will be interesting to see how your root vegetables do. And that maple tree is beautiful! Our maple tree never turned color and is losing its leaves.

Always so much to share from your garden Norma. Seems something has decided to munch on my baby cabbages and they are looking rather sad, so much so I am thinking about taking them our and replacing them with something else.
Absolutely love your maple tree. Have a wonderful and happy week.
🙂 Mandy xo

I’m not surprised you are getting more peas. Saw an article that suggested if you trimmed the pea vines back, removing dead or dying foliage, but leave the roots alone, you can get a second growth of foliage and flowers. Your experiment sounds interesting. I’ll bet it works for the vegetables you chose and they shouldn’t freeze solid in the garage.

That is so interesting with the peas – I’ve been pondering whether or not I should try succession sowing snow or sugar snap peas next year. Hopefully I remember come spring. And the colour on that tree – wow!

Hoping my comment goes through this time, so many things to say! What a beautiful tree – not sure what “seeds” are on a Maple tree, so what makes it seedless? Your rosemary looks lovely. I brought my rosemary in last winter but it became very woody so I ended up starting new plants anyway. And what a terrific batch of herbs you still have!!

Hello Susie,
Yes, your comment came through. Maple trees produce tons of seeds and the seeds sprouts easily generating tons of baby maple trees to pull every spring which is a pain in the neck. I really don’t know what makes my tree seedless but that’s what I bought some years ago, a seedless maple and it really does not produce any seeds. Now I am wondering, if there is no seeds how are new trees grown?

Beautiful maple tree! It is interesting to see what you are still harvesting as I am done here. Also enjoyed reading about your foam ice chest garden. Would not have thought about growing sugar peas in a container but you proved it can be done! Nancy

We just got a burst of some much needed rainfall. My yard sure needed it, but I think the sun will dry it all up in the next couple of days. I have a small rosemary plant that looks similar to yours. Sure hope it continues to thrive!

Hello Kristy,
It was gorgeous, it is in my backyard in front of my kitchen window. Glad to learn that your sage and oregano make it through winters, such a treat to have fresh herbs in the winter from ones garden.

Still a good decent harvest, dear Norma & that red maple tree,….how beautiful that is! You don’t see them over here in Belgium! 🙂 Waw!
We protect our big bush of rosemary & bay leaf plant, we placed a rubble layer of protective fleece around it. So the rian can still go through it but it is protected. It really works!